[PaulKn]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10988966

A Colombian plane has crashed after being struck by lightning, killing at least one person and injuring 114, officials say.

The Boeing 737, carrying 131 passengers, had been attempting to land at an airport on the island of San Andres in the Caribbean Sea.

The passenger jet, which was being operated by local airline Aires, crashed short of the runway.

It had left the Colombian capital of Bogota about midnight.

David Barrero from the Colombian Air Force said reports suggested the plane had crashed at 1.49am (0649 GMT).

San Andres Island, about 120 miles (190km) east of the Nicaraguan coast, is a popular tourist destination.

[Coolcirrus]

That's a weird debris pattern, with the cockpit pointing in the opposite direction to the rest of the fuselage - the close grouping of debris suggests a relatively slow velocity break-up. Let's hope the preliminary figure for survivors is an underestimate.

As discussed previously on ukww, unless I am mistaken, lightning has not been confirmed as the cause of any major civilian aviation crashes in at least the past 30 years, so is highly unlikely to be the direct culprit - but of course that will be up to the crash investigation team to sort out.

[Bazmundo]

IR imagery from NASA's Interactive Weather Satellite Image Viewer: http://wwwghcc.msfc....easthurrir.html

[Dave W]

Remarkable indeed that just one person died (because of a heart attack) in that break up..

[Bazmundo]

From ubalert.com, some argument as to whether it was a downdraft or lightning:

"BOGOTA -- Officials said one passenger was killed when a plane went down in bad weather and split into two while landing on Monday on the island of San Andres in Colombia. The number of injured victims was unclear as of Monday morning but the national police reported that six of at least 127 people on board the aircraft were unhurt. Reports were also conflicting as to how many people were actually aboard the Aires airline 737-700 jet when it went down at 1:49 a.m. According to the initial report of the Colombian national police, the flight had 131 people, including 121 adult passengers, four minors and six crew members. However, the list that police later released showed there were 127 people on board, including 121 passengers and six crew members. Col. Hector Carrascal, the director of navigation services at the Colombian Civil Aviation Authority, said the passenger list included six Americans, four Brazilians, four Costa Ricans, five French and two Germans. The lone casualty was identified as Amar Fernandez de Barreto. The cause of the crash was also unclear. The preliminary report from the national police said the plane may have been shaken by a downdraft as it prepared to land. However, Pedro Gallardo, the governor of San Andres y Providencia state, said lightning hit the aircraft. The El Tiempo newspaper said the pilot also reported a lightning strike. Photos of the plane showed it split in two, with the nose and first eight rows in one direction and the rest of the plane nearly pointing in the opposite direction. Police said the plane took off from Bogota shortly after midnight."

CNN source: http://edition.cnn.c...LoWM5x&wom=true